Radio spectra of the WMAP catalog sources

TL;DR

This paper presents compiled radio spectra for 208 extragalactic sources from the WMAP catalog, including flux measurements across multiple frequencies and long-term variability analysis, providing a comprehensive spectral database.

Contribution

It offers the first extensive compilation of radio spectra for WMAP sources, integrating data from various catalogs and observations, and analyzing their spectral characteristics and variability.

Findings

Most WMAP sources are reliably identified with known radio sources.

The spectra generally maintain their shape over time despite variability.

A large dataset of over 206,000 flux measurements was assembled.

Abstract

Compiled radio spectra are presented for 208 extragalactic sources from the catalog created from the WMAP satellite all-sky survey data in a range of 23-94 GHz taken during the first year of its operation in orbit. 205 out of 208 WMAP sources are reliably identified with radio sources from other catalogs, including also four out of five sources unidentified by the WMAP survey authors. We have found 203 WMAP sources to have optical identification: 141 quasars, 29 galaxies, 19 active galactic nuclei, 19 BL Lac-type objects and one planetary nebula, IC418. Simultaneous measurements of flux densities for 26 sources at five frequencies, 2.3, 3.9, 7.7, 11.2 and 21.7 GHz, were made with the radio telescope RATAN-600 in 2003 March. 25 sources were detected at all the frequencies, and only one, WMAP0517-0546, unidentified in other catalogs was not detected in our observations and is likely to be spurious. Using the database CATS we found a large number of identifications in different radio catalogs and in several long-term monitoring programs (GBI, UMRAO, SEST, IRAM, and others). The total number of flux density measurements that we collected in the frequency range from 10 MHz to 245 GHz for the identified WMAP sources is over 206,000, varying from 10-20 points for some southern sources to a few thousand points for sources from long-term monitorings. A considerable number of WMAP sources are variable on time scales from hours to dozens of years, nevertheless, the obtained integral spectra, including measurements in different years, may be of particular interest because these bright sources have been studied for more than forty years. The general character of the spectrum (power, flat, with a turnovers at low or high frequencies) of the WMAP sources remains unchanged.